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Tutorial

AppLovin Axon Tracking

AppLovin's Axon advertising platform runs campaigns that drive shoppers to your website. If you advertise with Axon, UltraCart's built-in integration reports your StoreFront activity and purchases back to AppLovin, so Axon can measure campaign performance and optimize toward shoppers who buy.

This tutorial covers which two keys you need, where to find them, how to configure tracking on your StoreFront, and how to confirm events are arriving. You do not paste any AppLovin code into your theme. UltraCart adds the pixel and sends the server-side events for you.

How UltraCart reports conversions to Axon​

UltraCart reports each tracked event to AppLovin over two independent paths:

  • AppLovin pixel: a browser tag UltraCart injects into your StoreFront pages automatically.
  • Axon Conversion API: a server-to-server feed sent directly from UltraCart's servers to AppLovin. It still reports conversions when a shopper's browser blocks the pixel.

Both paths carry the same event identifier (dedupe_id), so AppLovin counts each event once rather than twice. This is handled for you once both keys are saved.

Before you begin​

Gather two values from your AppLovin account. Both are required. Axon tracking stays off, including the browser pixel, until both are saved.

  • Event Key: shown as AppLovin Event Key on the Keys page of AppLovin Ads Manager (ads.applovin.com/account/api-keys). It identifies your account to both the pixel and the Conversion API.
  • Conversion API key: a separate secret key, also listed on the Keys page when it has been issued for your account.

If the Keys page shows only an AppLovin Event Key and a Reporting Key, your account does not have a Conversion API key yet. AppLovin's documentation says to contact your AppLovin representative or open a support ticket with AppLovin to get one. When you ask, refer to the Axon Conversion API at https://b.applovin.com/v1/event so AppLovin knows which key you need.

warning

Do not enter the Reporting Key in the Conversion API key field. The Reporting Key is for reporting on campaign spend and performance, not for sending conversions, so server-side events sent with it are not accepted. Both the Reporting Key and the Conversion API key are secret credentials. Treat them like passwords and do not share them in screenshots or support emails.

For more detail, see AppLovin's Conversion API documentation.

Configure Axon tracking on your StoreFront​

  1. Go to Main Menu → StoreFronts, choose your StoreFront host, then open Privacy & Tracking → Other.

  2. Scroll to the AppLovin / Axon section.

  3. Fill in both fields:

    • Event Key: paste your AppLovin Event Key.

    • Conversion API Key: paste your Axon Conversion API key.

  4. Select Save.

Once both values are saved, UltraCart injects the AppLovin pixel into your StoreFront pages and begins sending server-side events. Clearing either field turns off the whole integration, including both the pixel and the server-side feed.

Tracked events​

UltraCart reports the following StoreFront actions to Axon, through both the pixel and the Conversion API:

StoreFront actionAxon event
Page viewpage_view
Site searchsearch
Product or category viewview_item
Add to cartadd_to_cart
Registration or signupsign_up
Begin checkoutbegin_checkout
Purchasepurchase

The pixel also reports payment-info and lead actions.

The server-side purchase event is sent when the order's payment is processed, not when the receipt page loads. It is reported even if the shopper never reaches the receipt page. Test orders placed with a test payment method that is set to skip conversion pixels are not reported.

How click attribution works​

When a shopper arrives from an Axon ad, the AppLovin pixel stores a browser identifier in a cookie named _axwrt. Browsers such as Safari limit cookies written by JavaScript to about seven days, which would cut attribution short for many shoppers. To prevent that, UltraCart copies the identifier into a first-party cookie set by its own server, which lasts one year.

UltraCart attaches that identifier to the server-side events it sends, along with any customer details it has for matching. If neither is available, AppLovin has less to match a purchase back to the ad that drove it.

Axon tracking respects your StoreFront's privacy settings. Register axon as a marketing service in your theme's privacy configuration, and UltraCart holds back the pixel and the identifier cookie until a shopper grants marketing consent.

The email address, phone number, and ZIP or postal code that UltraCart sends to the Conversion API for matching are hashed (SHA-256) before they leave UltraCart's servers.

Verifying that events are arriving​

Server-side events are delivered by a background process, so allow a short delay between a StoreFront action and the event appearing on AppLovin's side.

To confirm data is flowing:

  1. Place a test order through your StoreFront checkout, using a payment method that is not set to skip conversion pixels.

  2. In AppLovin Ads Manager, check that the purchase appears once, not twice. Seeing it once confirms the pixel and server-side events are pairing correctly.

  3. Review the purchase event in Integration Logs. The log records the request UltraCart sent and AppLovin's response. Purchase events are logged here; other events are not.

If the integration log shows an authorization failure (HTTP 401) marked as critical, AppLovin did not accept the Conversion API key. Check that you entered the Conversion API key and not the Reporting Key or the Event Key.

note

If you have configured a Custom Thank You Page URL, the standard UltraCart receipt screen is bypassed and the browser pixel's purchase event does not fire. The server-side purchase event is still sent.

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